Apple Picking

I love traditions. Besides holidays and birthdays, having traditions in your family gives you things to look forward to during the year. In my opinion, you can never have too many traditions. 

Eric and I have a few with our family, things like having a pumpkin carving party every fall, making monkey balls every Christmas, etc. With my extended family, we have more than a few. We go to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens every year, have a Christmas Eve Scavenger Hunt every year, etc. 

Another one of our traditions for the Fall Season, is to go apple picking. Since my parents and one of my sisters live about two hours away from me, we meet in the middle at a nearby orchard. We pick apples, sip on apple cider and eat amazing apple cider donuts. If you've never gone apple picking, you ought to, if only for those donuts. As far as I know, they sell them at every orchard. Or should. Yum! (They also have puppies that are up for adoption at our particular orchard. Yes, every year, we debate whether to adopt. I'm pretty sure that, if not for the men in our families and their voices of reason, we would adopt every single one, every year, and have a doggy farm overflowing with four-legged friends. Nora would be in heaven.) 

Another perk to this trip is that we are able to visit one of my cousins, Becca, who lives right by the orchard. She invites all of us over and feeds us chili before we head back home. And her chili is always the tastiest thing in the world. Especially when you're sugar crashing from all the apple cider and donuts you just ate. 

You still have time! If you live near an orchard, it's still apple-picking season until early November. Last year, we went late in the season when Pink Lady apples were at their peak. My favorite. Here is a pic from then, when I was 9 months pregnant with Nora.

Last November, before Nora was born!

Our family of three!

Nora's first time picking an apple.

Eating an apple, right off the tree. 

Showing Nora the proper way to eat an apple.

 If you have any fun family traditions, please share them with me! I am always looking for more.

Pawley's Island, SC

Eric and I just got back from a trip to Pawley's Island, SC with our pastor and his wife. It was designed to be more of a retreat than anything else. A chance to get away with your family with some teachings in between. Our last getaway of the summer! Sad. (And yet, happy! Fall is clearly the best season of the year. Who agrees with me?)

Our church is working with 3DM Ministries, based in Pawley's Island (by the way, if you haven't heard of them, you need to check out their site! Amazing!) So, Mike Breen spoke every morning and I came home feeling refreshed in more ways than one. More about what I learned here.

I needed that short week away.

We had a blast with Nora! The retreat was right on the ocean, so we took a walk down to the beach and chased a massive pelican that was chilling on the beach, then we came back and relaxed in an inner tube drifting down the lazy river at the resort. We ate out at a restaurant on the marsh - and thank goodness there was a fence all the way around because all we kept reading/hearing about were the alligators! On our resort pass, they even had a warning not to "feed or molest the alligators". What?! Nora would have been the perfect sized snack for a hungry alligator so I kept a very close watch on her. Easy to do since she can't exactly get around very well yet at only 9 months old. :)

The highlight of the trip though, I think, was our bike ride down to the beach! It was Nora's first!

Just so you know, riding into the wind on the beach was quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever done... After hiking down and back up the Grand Canyon. Okay, after contractions. Okay, after labor...

I may be exaggerating a bit on how hard it was to bike into the wind. But still. In that moment, it was impossible. And my crazy husband made me go the whole way down the beach, telling me, "Think of how easy it will be when we turn around and head back!" That was supposed to make me feel better?

Apparently he thought so!

Look at that little smile! 

Not too happy with that helmet on.

So we took the helmet off once we got to the beach, thinking that would
make her happy... Not so! Not a fan of the seat apparently either. 

Once we got moving, she was happier. And then she spotted a doggy
on the beach and was ecstatic! Yay for furry, four-legged friends!

There I am, fearlessly biking into the wind! We went all the way to the very end. As far as you can see!

Loving that tongue of hers.

Look how comfortable she eventually got! Lounging with her feet up.
She eventually fell asleep - something about the wind in her hair,
the breeze on her face. Or so I am imagining.

Riding off into the sunset.